chris thorpe

I make a three layer sandwich. 1 outside rectangular frame. 2 trapezoid glass and shaped fillers same thickness as glass with bathroom sealant to make water tight. 3 inner rectangular frame, all screwed together from inside. I use Oak on the outside and Douglass fir for the rest.
Attached two photos of windows.

I use reclaimed Department store shelves for windows. There is a scrap yard near us which has 100's and charge 1.16€ / kg which is way cheap. The only drawback is that the glass is slightly trapezoid, but I just make a wider rebate to take this into account.

I grow tomatoes, aubergines, bell peppers and chilies in the summer and salads and carrots in the winter. After reading one of the other posts, I'm thinking of adding shading in the summer as the temperature got up to 55C this year even with the doors open permanently.

I rather like working with wood so instead of hoops, I made a wooden modular design out of local douglas fir. It was'nt as difficult as it looks. This is its third season and it has stood up to the very strong winds winds that  we have - up to 140 km/h this year, but attention!! doors closed when it blows.




each of the 12 arches was in three pieces assembled on the bench in my workshop using pocket hole screws and exterior glue. The uprights are screwed to bits of mild steel  from the scrap yard hammered into the ground.

Our ducks adore figs. In the season we have more than we can eat and I pull off the over-ripe ones fro the ducks, who arrive at a run when they see me going anywhere near the trees! They also jump to try and snagg the low hanging fruits. Before the ducks we had rather beautiful newts, but the Muscovies ate everything of an organic nature in the pond, including snakes. In fact the only thing they have refused is Jerusalem artichokes, but the chickens soon polished those off.